Matt Pearce

Writer

Matt Pearce is a national reporter for the Los Angeles Times and frequently writes about violence, disasters, social movements and civil liberties. A University of Missouri graduate, he has covered news in the Midwest for a number of publications and previously wrote about technology, culture and the Middle East as a featured writer for the New Inquiry. He hails from Kansas City, Mo.

When a gunman attacked a high school in Parkland, Fla., on Wednesday, killing 17 people, the event marked a depressingly familiar milestone. As of this week, seven of the 10 deadliest mass shootings in modern U.S. history have all happened since 2007. The Parkland massacre is now the eighth-deadliest...

Daylight faded quickly as Ben Raines’ 22-foot boat, the Auriculatus, slid through the chilly waters of the Mobile-Tensaw River Delta. Normally, Jan. 2 would be a bad day for boating. It was 25 degrees in lower Alabama, thanks to the “bomb cyclone” weather system that sent temperatures plummeting...

Pumping gas. It’s simple, right? You drive up to the gas station. You get out. You pick regular or premium. You squeeze the handle. And then — you leave! (Ideally, after paying.) To most American adults, it’s as familiar a ritual as getting out of bed. Not to Oregonians. For decades, they have...

Track Palin, the oldest son of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, was arrested Saturday in Alaska on charges of domestic violence. It marks the second time he’s been arrested on suspicion of domestic violence in two years. The charges seem to stem from an incident in his family’s hometown of Wasilla,...

Given the months-long stream of allegations of sexual harassment by powerful people, the big political news in Kansas on Friday sounded numbingly familiar: A prominent Democratic congressional candidate quit the 2018 race after journalists unearthed a former subordinate’s claim of sexual harassment....